prehystories of new media

"Prehystories of New Media" class at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), Fall 2008 + 2009, instructor: Nina Wenhart

“Our fine arts were developed, their types and uses were established, in times very different from the present, by men whose power of action upon things was insignificant in comparison with ours. But the amazing growth of our techniques, the adaptability and precision they have attained, the ideas and habits they are creating, make it a certainty that profound changes are impending in the ancient craft of the Beautiful. In all the arts there is a physical component which can no longer be considered or treated as it used to be, which cannot remain unaffected by our modern knowledge and power. For the last twenty years neither matter nor space nor time has been what it was from time immemorial. We must expect great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art.”
Paul Valéry, Pièces sur L’Art, 1931
Le Conquete de l’ubiquite

>> students' research papers, Fall 2008

class .07

exhibitions, pt.2

#01: discussion about last week's class (9 Evenings documentaries andresume of Cybernetic Serendipity)

#02: Nove Tendencije:
- about: http://prehysteries.blogspot.com/2008/06/nove-tendencije-bit-international.html
- poster of darko fritz's research: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ninawenhart/2055096215/sizes/o/in/set-72157603265770404/

#03: Ars Electronica: the beginnings
- situation up until the late 70s: Linz as a cultural vacuum between Vienna and Salzburg
- social-democratic administration under chancellor Bruno Kreisky, "culture for all"
- ORF Upper Austria: monopolistic broadcasting corporation, progressive, Hannes Leopoldseder and Christine Schöpf, searching for a cultural identity for Linz: modern and distinguishable
- Hubert Bognermayr --> idea for an electronic music festival --> Bognermayr, Schöpf, Leopoldseder as the parents of the ide of Ars Electronica
- first Ars Electronica in 1979
- highlight: cloud of sound --> A.Bruckner's 8th symphony broadcast to an audience of 100.000 people in the Danube park
- cultural festival, not just a festival for art
- projects made use of the city's specific features
- projects in open space as culture for all and culture by all
- examples: Claus Schulze's "Steel Opera" in collaboration with the local steel mill, art projects in the open spcae of public broadcasting (--> Stadtwerkstatt, "Nobody is Safe", 1991), playfulness (--> Loren Carpenter, "Audience Participation", 1994), transforming parts of the city into Second City (2007),...
- www.aec.at --> history --> festival catalgues
Posted by Nina Wenhart ...
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>> recommended books

  • Richard Barbrook - Imaginary Futures: From Thinking Machines to the Global Village
  • Fred Turner - From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network and the Rise of Digital Utopianism
  • Howard Rheingold, Tools for Thought, MIT Press, 2000 or online: http://rheingold.com/texts/tft/index.html
  • Oliver Grau - MediaArtHistories
  • Oliver Grau - Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion
  • Neil Spiller, Cyber Reader: Critical Writings for the Digital Era. Phaidon Press, 2002
  • Stephen Wilson - Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science, and Technology: Intersections of Art, Science and Technology
  • Gene Youngblood - Expanded Cinema
  • Ruth Leavitt - Artist and Computer
  • Jasia Reichardt - The Computer in Art
  • Jasia Reichardt - Robots. Fact, Fiction and Prediction
  • Herbert Franke - Computer Graphics, Computer Art
  • Frieder Nake - Ästhetik als Informationsverarbeitung: Grundlagen und Anwendungen der Informatik im Bereich ästhetischer Produktion und Kritik (Hardcover)
  • Norbert Wiener - Cybernetics
  • Claus Pias - Cybernetics - Kybernetik 2. The Macy-Conferences 1946-1953
  • Jasia Reichardt, Cybernetic serendipity: The computer and the arts, 1968
  • Catherine Morris, 9 Evenings Reconsidered, 2007
  • John Cage, Variations VII by John Cage: E.A.T. - 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering (1966) - DVD
  • Robert Rauschenberg: E.A.T. and ARTPIX: Open Score by Robert Rauschenberg (1966) - DVD
  • Noah Wardrip-Fruin - From Wagner to Multimedia
  • Erik Davis - TechGnosis: Myth, Magic + Mysticism in the Age of Information
  • Wendy Hui Kyong Chun - New Media, Old Media: A History and Theory Reader
  • R.L.Rutsky - High Techné: Art and Technology from the Machine Aesthetic to the Posthuman
  • Lev Manovich - The Language of New Media
  • Lev Manovich - Soft Cinema: Navigating the Database
  • Siegfried Zielinski - Variantology. On Deep Time. Relations of Arts, Sciences and Technologies: On Deep Time Relations of Arts, Sciences and Technologies
  • Siegfried Zielinski - Deep Time of New Media
  • Timothy Druckrey - Facing the Future. 20 years of Ars Electronica
  • NIGHTLINE: GONE FISHING: JOE DAVIS, AN AMERICAN ORIGINAL: 07/06/2001 - DVD

>> syllabus

CHI Class Syllabus 2009

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... is a Media Art historian and researcher. She holds a PhD from the University of Art and Design Linz where she works as an associate professor. Her PhD-thesis is on "Speculative Archiving and Digital Art", focusing on facial recognition and algorithmic bias. Her Master Thesis "The Grammar of New Media" was on Descriptive Metadata for Media Arts. For many years, she has been working in the field of archiving/documenting Media Art, recently at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Media.Art.Research and before as the head of the Ars Electronica Futurelab's videostudio, where she created their archives and primarily worked with the archival material. She was teaching the Prehystories of New Media Class at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and in the Media Art Histories program at the Danube University Krems.